vaporware-awards posts

Every year we are surprised by the number of games that manage to be released. But there are always PC game titles that are announced and then pretty much disappear from view. These are the games that Big Download puts the label "Vaporware" On. Unlike other such web sites, we consider vaporware to be any PC game that was announced, lots of time with much hype, only to go into a cave with little to no info revealed about the game at all.

That's why you won't see games like Diablo III or even Duke Nukem Forever on this list. Yes, they are taking a long time to be completed but at least the development teams behind them have shown the game off in playable form in the past year and it looks like they may actually be released. But that's not the case with most of the games on our new 2010 PC game vaporware list. While they may all finally come out of their shell, we have no idea when that will be at this point.

So which games made our top 10 list this year? Check after the jump to find out for yourself. Just be careful: It's dark in there.

We at Big Download, and the game industry at large, are always interested in seeing what Wired magazine will put into their annual Vaporware list. However, we have been greatly disappointed with the games and game related products that Wired has picked to be on the list in the past few years.

This year's list included StarCraft II at number one which we certainly agree with. However it also included the third episode of Penny Arcade Adventures which we think is a little unfair since two episodes were released last year. And putting Black Mesa, a Half-Life 2 mod that's been in development for several years, is very unfair since the folks behind it are doing it for fun, not for profit or even a deadline.

The truth is there are a lot of high profile games and game-related hardware projects that certainly fit the term "Vaporware" far better than Wired's article. We've decided to give our own Vaporware awards to put the spotlight on those games that were promised at one point for release in 2009 but have not only missed that deadline but have dropped off the the grid in terms of recent publicity and/or any firm new release dates (in StarCraft II's favor, its developer/publisher Blizzard has shown the game as playable at recent events like BlizzCon). We've picked 11 candidates for the award and also given a special mention to a game that, while it didn't have a 2009 release date, should have been out by now as well.

Click on the image above to continue reading Big Download's 2009 PC Game Vaporware Awards